3D printing is enabling a cost effective production of individualized objects. In the age of soaring healthcare costs, utilizing 3D printing software to produce the support items for healing using streamlined workflows is a breath of fresh air!

The 3YOURMIND platform allows medical personnel to produce implants and prosthetic devices based on existing scan data using professional 3D service providers. Many surgeons and pathologists are seeing the healing benefits of using 3D printed replica organs for patients to visualize the problem or surgeons to plan complicated procedures. 3D printed organic tissue is already becoming part of scientific research.

The development of new medical devices has typically been a labor intensive process as most designs are completely unique and don’t benefit from pre-built components. Rapid prototyping using 3D printing increases the pace of this design process.

Surgical Application

In the case of surgical planning, the surgeon assembles the ‏surgical team in the Jacobs Institute Training Centre to perform ‏the procedure on the model under fluoroscopy. The surgeon’s ‏team is joined by JI engineers, who can converse about the ‏model’s properties or structure. The JI also documents the ‏procedure, capturing surgeon feedback on the models and ‏the surgical approach. The JI take photographs and videos, ‏to further catalogue the experience. The surgeon and the ‏surgical team use the models to crystallise the plan in several ‏ways during a practice surgery.

First, the surgeon must determine the optimal path to deploy ‏the device. Using the model can help the surgeon recognise ‏if using a certain vessel pathway is helpful or problematic. It ‏can also assist the surgeon in recognising which vessels are ‏twisted, or tortuous, and exactly how to handle the catheters ‏and wires to navigate the bends and turns.

Then, once the surgeon reaches the affected area of the ‏blood vessel, they can try using a particular device to treat ‏it—whether it is a device that will retrieve a clot in the case ‏of a stroke, or a stent and coil duo to treat an aneurysm. After ‏deploying the device, a surgeon may find deployment is too ‏difficult or that a different device might be better suited for ‏treatment of that particular case. Finally, the surgeon would ‏use the original or try an alternate device during the actual ‏surgery, with greater confidence that the original device would ‏have been unsuccessful.

There are numerous advantages to patients, surgeons, and ‏hospitals in using a 3D-printed model to devise an optimal ‏surgical plan. It: ‏

Allows surgeons to try a particular approach or device in a risk-free environment; Provides the surgeon with practice time before performing the actual surgery, much like medical simulation; Minimises the time a patient is on the table, being exposed to harmful radiation, as a surgeon tries to figure out the best approach; Reduces surgical cost associated with longer surgery; Reduces cost associated with incorrect device selection (catheters, wires, or devices types and sizes); Determines which are the best tools for the specific patient’s case; Helps the surgeon choose the appropriately-sized device; Identifies complications so they can anticipate them in surgery.